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London City Airport Consults on Flight Path Modernisation

London City Airport (LCY) is to consult on proposals to modernise its flight paths, to allow the introduction of Area Navigation (RNAV), superseding the ground based navigational systems used today.

RNAV is an advanced, highly accurate method of aircraft navigation which allows planes to follow the centreline of a route much more closely. The modernisation of LCY’s flight paths will not see them change from those that are flown today by aircraft departing from, or arriving at, the airport.

The proposed changes are key to achieving network efficiency and reducing delays in the south and are an important part of the London Airspace Management Programme (LAMP), a wider programme to modernise the air route system over London and the south east that is being led by NATS, the UK’s leading provider of air traffic services. This is essential for the delivery of the Future Airspace Strategy (FAS), the Civil Aviation Authority’s blueprint for modernising airspace by 2020.

The consultation, which will run from September 4 2014 to November 27 2014, is a statutory requirement according to Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) regulations and is being conducted to ensure the needs of stakeholders such as the London City Airport Consultative Committee are considered. The consultation is limited to the proposals for enhancements to the navigation systems that define the standard arrival and departure routes to LCY – it is not about flight movements, infrastructure or aviation policy.

This London City Airport proposal seeks to replicate the existing conventional flight paths with equivalent RNAV routes. The new RNAV routes have been designed to replicate the conventional routes as closely as possible (within the rules of what is allowed for RNAV routes). The concept is not optional - a legal mandate is being introduced by the Civil Aviation Authority, which will require all aircraft to be approved to navigate using RNAV by November 2017, and a mandate for the airspace to provide RNAV routes is expected to be effective by winter 2019.

Detailed information about the LCY proposal, including diagrams illustrating the proposed flight path modernisation, and information about how to participate in the consultation process – and what outcomes can be expected – is available on the London City Airport Consultative Committee (LCACC) website www.lcacc.org, and on the London City Airport website www.londoncityairport.com/londonairspacemanagement.